Apple Vision Pro update promises to fix two of its most glaring weaknesses

The Apple Vision Pro is shaping up to be one of the best VR headsets you can buy, but it’s still come in for its fair share of criticism since launching last week. Now, though, Apple is working to fix two of its most glaring problems with an update to the device’s visionOS operating system.

The first issue concerned the Vision Pro’s “Personas” feature for video calls. Instead of showing you with a giant VR headset wrapped around your face on the call, the Vision Pro did a bunch of clever processing to digitally remove the headset, making it look like you were just conducting a normal video call.

At least, that was the intention. In practice, lots of people found their Personas to be downright creepy, with the results veering into uncanny valley territory. Luckily, Apple’s update improves those Personas to make them a little less uncomfortable.

After installing the visionOS 1.1 beta update, you’ll be prompted to rescan your Persona to get the “latest appearance updates.” While the new scan looks fairly similar to old personas, plenty of people on social media have reported that their results feel like an improvement over the old versions. Apple says that Personas are still in beta, so hopefully they’ll continue to improve over time.

Reset your passcode

That’s not the only way the visionOS 1.1 beta is improving Apple’s headset. Earlier this week, it was reported that you’d have to take your Vision Pro into an Apple Store if you did something as simple as forget its passcode. Fortunately, that won’t be necessary anymore once you update your headset.

News outlet 9to5Mac spotted code in the visionOS 1.1 beta that will allow you to erase all content on the headset if you forget the passcode. That’s a drastic step, but it will at least let you create a new (and hopefully more memorable) passcode. Note that since the Vision Pro comes with Activation Lock enabled, you’ll need to enter your Apple ID password to reactivate it after the reset.

Previously, you could only reset your passcode in the Settings app, but the Settings app itself was inaccessible without a passcode, creating a situation that was impossible to resolve without Apple’s help. It was a strange oversight for Apple, a company that is usually so on the ball when it comes to small details.

Regardless, these are two welcome changes coming to the Vision Pro. Hopefully they could be the start of Apple fixing a few of the headset’s other issues and missing features to help make it an even better device.

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